Yogi Adityanath criticizes Raje and Swaraj for being women, quits as BJP MP over party's 'soft' stance on women

Disgusted by the party’s ‘soft’ stance on women, BJP MP from Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath officially tendered his resignation from parliament and the party in an open letter addressed to party chief Amit Shah and the PM early earlier today. Chiding the party in his resignation letter for going soft on women’s issues in an attempt to pander to the ‘growing influence of the West’ in India, he expressed strong disappointment with the BJP for allowing women to join its ranks.

Elaborating upon his reasons in the letter, he stated: “What the party leadership seems to have forgotten is that women and men are NOT created equal: a woman’s place is at home, her duty to look after her man and bear him sons. Gender equality is an absurd Western fantasy that lies squarely outside the laws of the Manusmriti and I am supremely disappointed that the party has allowed this fantasy to permeate into its ideological midst. The two women who are the very causes of the current logjam in parliament are perfect examples of the consequences of having let this fantasy live on for as long as it has.

Yogi announcing his resignation

“Neither are bad Hindus, insofar as they were both acting in line with the prime imperative to nurture: in Swaraj’s case, the husband and in Raje’s, the son. However, had they been men, had they not been MPs, or even had they been MPs, but with some other party, their actions, however natural to their womanly mental constitutions these might have seemed, would not today be impacting the party as adversely as they are. It is for this reason therefore that I must now regretfully break my association with a party that has chosen to insidiously supplant it’s own Hindu ideology with blatant Western-style capitalistic avarice and ask to be relieved of my duties both as a member of parliament and as a member of the BJP.”

Adityanath’s open letter predictably caused a furore, drawing ire from politicians from across the spectrum for his extreme anti-feminist stance. When interviewed by the press about the flak that he has received since his letter was published, he had this to say: “I have a point of view that I strongly believe in, which I have clearly expressed to the party leadership; in a democracy you are allowed to do so, you know?”

When asked what prompted such an extreme move, he responded: “I had long been growing wary of the party’s growing inclusion of woman in political life, a move that is blatantly in violation of Hindu scripture; its especially hypocritical for a Hindu party to be doing so. Once the controversies over MPs Swaraj and Raje came to the fore, I felt my increasingly tenuous link with the party finally snap. At this rate I fear that the day won’t be far off when we will have a woman holding the highest seat of power leading the country into ruin.”

When pointed out that the country has already had both, a women Prime Minister and a woman President, he was quick to retort with the following: “And see where that got us – the woman PM imposed the Emergency and the woman president ended up becoming nothing more than the ineffectual, money-squandering puppet of another woman of, unfortunately, greater political might.”

This is not the first time that Yogi Adityanath has been in the press for the wrong reasons: he caused a minor political ruckus earlier this year in June when he stated that those opposed to Yoga can leave Hindustan and they should drown themselves. Neither is this his first falling-out with the BJP: in the UP Legislative Assembly elections of 2007, he was involved in a tussle with the party leadership over choice of candidates, with a compromise finally being reached allegedly due to RSS mediation.